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Jan 28, 2011

Who even uses the WiFi encryption types that Aircrack actually hacks these days......everyone knows those WiFi encryption schemes are broken and not secure.

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Sometimes people use WEP or WPA either because they have an old router that doesn't support WPA2, or because they want their WPA2-capable router to be accessible from older WEP or WPA laptop PCs. Such people aren't trying to stop sophisticated hackers, just unsophisticated passers-by.

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TRS-80: Verizon and the other ISPs automatically implement WEP for their profit, not for their customers' security. I worked in the industry so I know this for a fact. If they don't implement security on their routers two costly things tend to happen.

1) People realize that they can easily steal or share an Internet connection with their neighbors. If people share a connection then the ISPs get fewer paying customers. Tech savvy customers can change their router's settings, but most people don't know how, or don't want to bother. But this isn't the main reason.

2) More importantly, if all of the WiFi networks in a neighborhood (especially at an apartment complex) are unencrypted, then cutomers accidentally roam onto their neighbor's (weak) WiFi network, get bad connection, and then call their ISP to complain that their Internet connection isn't working very well. Those customer service calls cost the ISPs a lot of money, and can be eliminated by implementing security, like WEP.

But then why not implement WPA2?

If the ISPs set their customers up with WPA2 encryption, then many of their customers would have problems connecting their older laptop PCs to the WiFi network because many older laptop PCs don't support WPA2. It would take too much time (i.e. cost the ISPs too much money) for the tech support people to try to figure out what kind of encryption capabilities each of the customers' PCs have (and all of their potential guests will have), so the ISPs just implement WEP, which is supported by all WiFi-capable PCs.